Chef – Mk1 Experience Prototype

In our Honours project, we are delivering two prototypes before the final one. For the MK1, I decided to create an experience prototype, using the “Wizzard of Oz” method – faking it all.

I was faking a behaviour of tablet app by hiding in a different room and doing a Google Hangout call with screen sharing a prepared presentation created on slid.es. The advantage of slid.es is that you can navigate both linear (as in classic powerpoint/keynote presentation), or vertical if you’d like to go in more detail. That was exactly what I wanted for each step of cooking process – offer more detailed info/help for each step.

Me simulating the behaviour of my app as a Wizzard of Oz, hidden from the actual prototype

Technical note: I tried other VOIP solutions for the prototype (Skype, Mumble) along with VLC streaming for better video quality. But VLC was very unstable, so I ended with simple Hangout.

For the presentation, I did a quick illustration for each step and vectorised it using Adobe Shape – a great iPhone/iPad app which vectorises on-the-fly, similarly to Adobe Illustrator.

Early Chef illustrations for each step

We had an informal presentation with Chris Lim & Graham Pullin, where Chris tried the prototype himself. I created a simple recipe for Italian Caprese wrap with mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. There was big chance that user will ask for directions on the wrap folding – that’s when Chef shines!

You can try the prototype yourself. Navigate between the screens by using arrow keys.